Invasion of Iraq

The Invasion of Iraq occurred from 20 March to 1 May 2003 when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, which President George W. Bush claimed was supporting terrorist groups and was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. In just 21 days, the US, British, Australian, and Polish forces succeeded in destroying the Iraqi Army and occupying much of the country, deposing the Ba'athist regime and replacing it with a transitional government. The invasion was the first phase of the Iraq War, which soon evolved into a large-scale Islamist insurgency against the occupying Coalition forces and their newly-installed Iraqi government.

Background
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, President of the United States George W. Bush declared a "War on Terror", vowing to hunt down and destroy al-Qaeda and its allies across the world. While the United States launched a successful invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy the al-Qaeda bases in the country and overthrow their Taliban allies, President Bush also claimed that the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq had been supporting al-Qaeda since 1992. On 12 September 2002, in his address to the United Nations Security Council, Bush made the case for an invasion of Iraq; while Germany and France did not support this move, the UN created a commission led by Hans Blix to ensure that Iraq was not in possession of weapons of mass destruction and that it was complying with post-Gulf War UN arms sanctions. In October 2002, the US Congress voted to authorize military action in Iraq, and, on 5 February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell informed the UN that an Iraqi defector had revealed that, despite Iraq's public compliance with the sanctions, the country still possessed WMDs. The USA, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Japan, and Spain supported a UN resolution to authorize an invasion of Iraq, and a coalition force of 248,000 US troops, 45,000 British troops, 2,000 Australian troops, 1,300 Spanish troops, 500 Danish troops, and 194 Polish troops was assembled to depose the Ba'athist government. They were supported by 70,000 Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north of the country, and they faced around 300,000 Iraqi Army troops.

War
The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with Coalition special forces already in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad detonating explosives; they also targeted installations for precision airstrikes. Coalition troops then invaded from the south, while amphibious forces seized oil installations around Basra and the al-Faw peninsula to prevent them from being destroyed or used in environmental warfare. On 23 March, the first major battle of the war occurred when Coalition forces attacked the major Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, situated near bridges over the Euphrates River. A firefight with pro-Saddam elements broke out before US troops took the city. To the south, after two weeks of heavy fighting, British troops fought their way into Iraq's second city, Basra, on 6 April. In the north, special forces and US airborne forces supported the Kurdish capture of Kirkuk. On 5 April, US troops raided the Baghdad airport to test the city's defenses. They were met with heavy resistance, but they secured the airport. The next day, troops entered the city itself, crushing resistance with attack helicopters and aerial bombardment. The city was occupied fully by Coalition forces on 9 April, with statues of Saddam Hussein toppled throughout the city and his image removed from all public buildings. Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein and his main power base, was captured on 15 April, the last major city to fall to Coalition forces. Saddam was captured on 13 December 2003, and he would later be sentenced to death for war crimes and executed in 2006. The invasion was declared over at the end of April 2003; it had been well planned and had been carried out with great professionalism despite the difﬁcult conditions caused by sandstorms and the increasing heat. Casualties were low on both sides. Little thought, however, had been given to Iraq’s post-war administration. The country had no history of democratic politics and was split between a Muslim Shia majority previously persecuted by Saddam, a Sunni minority he had used to control the country, and Kurdish separatists in the north. The country’s infrastructure lay in ruins. With little or no power or water, cities were barely functioning. The one institution that had united the country - the pro-Saddam army - was immediately dismantled. The Coalition therefore. country until r democratic elections could be held and a new government formed.